Page images
PDF
EPUB

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY

OF PHYSIOLOGY.

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN.

BY

JAMES PAGET, M.D., F.R.S.

ON THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY.

It is my office to submit to you the importance of the study of Physiology, as a branch of education for all classes; to state the grounds on which it seems desirable that every one should learn somewhat of the structure of the human body, and of the processes that are carried on within it, and the laws according to which they are governed.

The advantages to be expected from the general teaching of physiology may be grouped in two classes: the first, including such as would tend to the promotion of the science; the second, such as would belong to the students.

By a wider diffusion of the knowledge of physiology its progress would be accelerated, as that of any other science would, by the increased number of the competent observers of its facts.

But a larger advantage, and one which, I think, physiology needs more than any other science does, would arise in this, that the communication would be easier, which is now so difficult, between those who are engaged in it, and those who specially devote themselves to other sciences that might assist it. Almost every process in the living body involves the exercise of mechanical and chemical-perhaps, also, of electrical

forces, whose effects are mingled with those of the more proper vital force; and although this special force may modify, and in some sort veil, the effects of the others, yet must their influence be reckoned and allowed for in nearly every case we have to study. Therefore, the complete solution of any new physiological problem must require such a master of all these sciences of dead and living matter as cannot now, I believe, be found, or else it must have the co-operation of many workers, each skilled in some single science, and able to communicate with all the rest. Such co-operation is, through the present narrowness of teaching, almost impossible. The mere chemist, or mechanical, or electrical philosopher, and the mere physiologist (one, I mean, who studies it, chiefly, by anatomy or by direct experiment), can scarcely so much as understand each other's language: they work apart at the same subject; and sometimes even confuse each other, by showing the same facts in different lights, and explained in different and mutually unintelligible terms. I know well that it requires nearly all the power of a strong mind so to master any of the physical sciences, as to be able to investigate its applications in the living body; and that, therefore, few - could hope to be at once excellent in physiology, and in any science of dead matter; but the co-operation that I speak of would not need more than that the skilled workman in each science should understand the language, and the chief principles, and modes of working, of the rest. I am sure that it is, in great measure, through the want of help, such as it might hence derive, that the onward steps of physiology are so slow, so retarded by backslidings, and by the consciousness of insecurity.

And in yet another way, I believe that the general teaching of physiology would insure its more rapid progress—namely, by finding out those who are especially fit for its study.

If we mark the peculiar fitness of certain men for special callings, who are even below an average ability in the common business of life, one might imagine some natural design of mutual adaptation between things to be done and men to do them; and certainly, it were to be wished that a wider scheme of education should leave it less to chance whether a man will fall, or fail to fall, in the way of that special work for which he seems designed. Really, it has seemed like a chance that has led nearly every one of our best physiologists to his appropriate work; like a chance, the loss of which might have consigned him to a life of failures, or of mediocrity, in some occupation for which he had neither capacity nor love.

Such are some of the chief benefits that might result to physiology if it were more generally studied. I might tell of more; but I will not do so, nor enlarge on these; for, it might be argued, that it would be unjust to tax every one with intellectual labour for the advancement of one science, even though that science be the foundation of the healing art, in whose improvement every one is interested. I will rather try to show that, through such labour in the study of physiology, every one would gain for himself some more direct advantage.

I believe that even a moderate acquaintance with the principles of physiology, acquired in early life, would benefit a man, with regard to both his body and his mind; and that it would do this by guiding him in the main

« EelmineJätka »